Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Unutterably Detestable Like The Yankee Flag

The
Confederacy’s first official flag, known as the “Stars and Bars” was first
flown on March 4th 1861.

The
Provisional Confederate Congress created the Committee of the Flag and Seal among
its first acts. The Committee was
chaired by William Porcher Miles of South Carolina. Miles designed what would become the
Confederate battle flag, but an overwhelming request to not abandon the old
flag of the United States, caused the Committee to choose the similarly styled
“Stars and Bars”. It was flown for the
first time on March 4th 1861 over the dome of the Confederate
capitol at Montgomery, Alabama.

The “Stars
and Bars” was designed by the Prussian artist Nicola Marschall [there is an
equal claim made by Orrin Randolph Smith of Henderson, North Carolina]. The flag is shown with between 7 and 15 stars,
based on how many states have joined the Confederacy. This was the flag which flew over Fort Sumter
when the Confederacy took control Charleston Harbor.

There were
criticisms of the “Stars and Bars” due to its resemblance to the Union flag on
the battlefield. By January 1862 George
William Bagby of the Southern Literary Messenger, wrote "Everybody wants a
new Confederate flag. The present one is
universally hated. It resembles the Yankee flag and that is enough to make it
unutterably detestable." The
Confederacy discontinued the use of the flag in May 1863.